The White House

Office of the Vice President

For Immediate Release
June 28, 2010

TRANSCRIPT: Remarks by Vice President Biden on the Passing of Senator Robert C. Byrd

GE Appliance Park, Louisville, Kentucky

VICE PRESIDENT BIDEN: "As we used to say in my years in the Senate, if you’ll excuse a point of personal privilege here for a moment, a very close friend of mine, one of my mentors -- a guy who was there when I was a 29-year-old kid being sworn into the United States Senate shortly thereafter; a guy who stood in the rain, in a pouring rain, freezing rain outside a church as I buried my daughter and my wife before I got sworn in, Robert C. Byrd.  He passed away today.  He was the -- we lost the dean of the United States Senate, but also the state of West Virginia lost its most fierce advocate and, as I said, I lost a dear friend.
 
“Throughout his 51 years, the longest tenure of any member in Congress in the history of the United States, Robert C. Byrd was a tough, compassionate, and outspoken leader and dedicated above all else to making life better for the people of the mountain state -- his state, the state of West Virginia.  He never lost sight of home.  He may have spent half a century in Washington.  But there’s a guy -- if anybody wondered -- he never, never, never, never took his eye of his beloved mountain state.  And we shall not -- to paraphrase the poet -- we shall not see his like again.  And the Senate is a lesser place for his going."  
 

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